In this ambitious follow-up to Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay uses the Odyssey, the story of a soldier's homecoming, to illuminate the pitfalls that trap many veterans on the road back to civilian life.

Seamlessly combining important psychological work and brilliant literary interpretation with an impassioned plea to renovate American military institutions, Shay deepens our understanding of both the combat veteran's experience and one of the world's greatest classics.

A photographer deftly weaves psychology and military, political, oral, and cultural history to trace the experience of post traumatic stress disorder in the military up through the Vietnam War.

Armies know all about killing. It is what they do, and ours does it more effectively than most. We are painfully coming to realize, however, that we are also especially good at killing our own ""from the inside out,"" silently, invisibly. In every major war since Korea, more of our veterans have taken their lives than have lost them in combat. The latest research, rooted in veteran testimony, reveals that the most severe and intractable PTSD--fraught with shame, despair, and suicide--stems from ""moral injury."" But how can there be rampant moral injury in what our military, our government,...

This compelling and timely collaboration between photographer/writer Jim Lommasson and American veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars presents Lommasson's portraits and interviews as well as soldiers' own photographs from the war zones. The stories expressed in words and in images are intimate, profound, and timeless. In their own words, 50 men and women speak their truth about these wars--what they saw and what they did. They talk about the wars' impact on themselves and on their loved ones at home as well as on the Iraqis and Afghanis caught in the crossfire. They talk about why they...